Development of gross and fine motor competences and the effect of gross motor training on fine motor skills in primary school children

Purpose: Two approaches have shown to be successful in improving children’s motor performances: one is focusing on movement technique, another is focusing on the goal of the task. To date, a comparison of e!ectiveness between these two approaches is yet to be investigated in a population of children. In this study, we sought to investigate if and how technique-focus and goal-focus visual instructions possibly di!er in improving motor skills across late childhood in a throwing task. Methods: 180 boys and girls (ages 6-11) participated in this study and were divided into technique-focus, goal-focus, and control groups. The task was to throw balls at a target aiming at the bull’s eye. The experiment was divided into pretest (5 throws), practice (7x3 throws), and retention (7x3 throws) phases. Following the pretest phase, the technique-focus and goal-focus groups were shown a video of how to perform the experimental task. For the technique-focus group, the video showed the correct movement preparation (i.e., feet/hand placement, stance, grip), but not the movement execution (i.e., the ball throwing). For the goal- focus group, the same video was cropped in such a way that only the movement execution was visible. Retention tests were executed the following day. The control group did not watch the video. Results: Regarding the ball throwing scores, preliminary "ndings show that the technique-focus group performed signi"cantly better than both the goal-focus group and the control group (p<0.05). Speci"cally, the di!erence in performance is signi"cant at 10-11 years old. The same results are visible in the retention tests. Conclusions: When it comes to motor skills enhancing strategies, focusing on the correct movement technique is more advantageous than concentrating on the goal of the task. This appears to be particularly true towards the end of the late childhood developmental stage. These results could allow teachers and youth trainers to e#ciently maximize children’s motor experience. Further studies are needed to clarify whether a longer retention e!ect is present and whether speci"c visual instructions also in$uence motor performances during adolescence.